The Battle of Waterloo – Knowing my Fate is to be with you

In personal natal astrology, the 7th house rules marriage and long term personal relationships. Any planets in that house will show both the kind of partner and experience the person will attract through their love life.

In mundane or political astrology, the charts of nations and events, the 7th house rules not partners but enemies and opponents of the state. Planets in the 7th house will say more about the experience of that nation in war than in love.

For some people of course, their love life takes on a fighting quality as in the battle of the sexes. This is particularly true if their 7th house planets are arranged in opposition to other ones in their 1st house.

But if a strong first house / 7th house opposition comes up in the charts of political astrology, this could easily result in open warfare.

One fascinating example of this was fought 150 years ago

The two planets most up for a scrap would have to be Mars and Pluto. Jupiter always likes to make anything bigger, so when we see this opposition across the 1st / 7th house we would have to expect one of the most momentous battles in history.

Any opposition symbolises a tension to be resolved and Mars, Pluto and Jupiter will always seek dynamic action as there way of expression. The results of the challenge of an opposition would be seen in the direction of any planet that creates a T square to it.

In this case of the Battle of Waterloo chart the resulting impact was on the apex Sun in Gemini at the top of the chart in the 10th house. The Sun in the 10th seems a good symbol for an empire. Gemini is a Mutable sign of change, adaptability and dispersion. So the result of the battle was the dissolution of Napoleon’s French empire.

When we look at the chart of an event we can often see the main players.

Jupiter in the 1st house must symbolise Napoleon, not least because he had the same placing.

Capricorn Research used to run beginners classes in astrology. One game we used to play frequently was guess whose chart. One combination much used Napoleon and Elizabeth Taylor ( Sun in Pisces opposite Neptune, Moon in Scorpio, exact Venus / Uranus conjunction ). Hundreds of people played this game, no one ever got it wrong.

For an Emperor the Sun in Leo in the 10th house does it on its own, but when its square to Jupiter in Scorpio in the 1st house we have an even bigger personality.

Mars conjunct Neptune in Virgo also in the 10th indicates a brilliant and inspired military strategist with great grasp of the detail of war as well as the vision of the Sun / Jupiter.

The Moon in Capricorn opposite Saturn also shows strong discipline, together with great leadership and organisational skills.

But what would any chart of a fighter be without an enemy ? So we have to look to the 7th house for that. What we see there is Uranus at 11 degrees 31 Taurus, so Napoleon’s great foe would have something of this symbol about him.

The Duke of Wellington had the Sun at 11 degrees 49 Taurus conjunct Uranus.

Wellington also had a Sun / Jupiter aspect, an opposition. Our roots can always be found in the 4th house and Wellington who had the Sun in Taurus on the 4th house cusp came from Ireland, a country ruled by that sign.

Jupiter in Scorpio in the 10th showed how far he rose in his life to become Prime Minister of Britain.

With Mars / Saturn and Pluto in an opposition across the 1st / 7th house its obvious that Wellington was just as much up for a fight as Napoleon.

Mars conjunct Saturn in Cancer in the 7th house also caused him a lot of trouble in his personal life as he contracted a disastrous marriage.

He had met Kitty Pakenham and they both desperately wanted to marry but because of his lack of financial prospects, her family rejected him. Ten years later he had returned from a military campaign in India with a great deal of money so her family agreed to the marriage.

When he saw he remarked “She has grown ugly, by Jove!” but he was honor bound to marry her. He found her “intolerable” to be around and they usually lived apart whilst he had many mistresses throughout his marriage.

If we look back to the Waterloo chart we can see that just as Jupiter represented Napoleon in the 1st house, Mars symbolised Wellington. Wellington’s own Mars was in the exact same position as the Waterloo Mars.

But what about Pluto ? The Waterloo chart shows Mars conjunct Pluto in the 7th house, so there were two characters opposite Napoleon.

Legend has it that Wellington won at Waterloo, but in fact there was a coalition of 7 countries against Napoleon, comprising an Anglo-allied army under the command of the Duke which combined with a Prussian army under the command of Gebhard von Blücher.

According to Wellington, the battle was “the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life”.

Two days before Waterloo,the Prussians sustained a serious defeat and Blucher lay trapped under his dead horse for several hours, but his life was saved by his aide-de-camp, Count Nostitz. Blücher rejoined his army and led them back to the battle arriving on the field of Waterloo in the late afternoon of June 18th. With the battle hanging in the balance Blücher’s army intervened with decisive and crushing effect, his vanguard drawing off Napoleon’s badly needed reserves, and his main army being instrumental in crushing French resistance.

Such a return from the dead can only be symbolised by one planet, Pluto.

But who would win ? Well one interesting point is that both Blucher and Napoleon had Mars in strategic Virgo, but the Prussian’s Jupiter is closely conjunct the Emperor’s Mars showing who would come out on top in a battle between them.

If the Battle of Waterloo chart was a Horary, we would look to the Moon and her movements. The Moon applies by trine to Mars and Pluto giving the battle to Wellington and Blucher, but does not complete the sextile aspect to Jupiter until it changes sign which would mean it could not bring victory to Napoleon.

Also that Moon is at 18 Scorpio, separating from Napoleon’s Jupiter and applying to Wellington’s so she hands victory to the Allies.

The defeat marked the end of Napoleon’s rule as Emperor of the French, and ever since then facing your Waterloo has become synonymous with meeting your own end.

And despite a few attempts, no one else had managed to conquer Europe since, until over 100 years later four Swedes launched an all out attack. Their successful assault on Eurovision in 1974 with the song Waterloo made the astrological connection between the relationship idea of the personal 7th house and the war like one of the mundane 7th.

” Waterloo – I was defeated, you won the war
Waterloo – Promise to love you for ever more
Waterloo – Couldn’t escape if I wanted to
Waterloo – Knowing my fate is to be with you
Waterloo – Finally facing my Waterloo ”